New Year, New Decade

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Here's a moving self portrait of how I'm setting myself up nicely for the #newyear. "Legend has it that #collardgreens and #blackeyedpeas are said to represent a prosperous new year, with the #greens symbolizing #cash and peas #coins. American currency, however, is nothing like the dark green hue of cooked #collards and at no point have we used puny, white pea-sized balls as change. While some may still eat collards and #peas for this reason to ring in the new year, the tradition dates hundreds of years back in American history and even further back across the Atlantic." For more -- @mic: Collard greens and black eyed peas: The history of why we eat them on New Year's https://www.mic.com/articles/163513/collard-greens-and-black-eyed-peas-the-history-of-why-we-eat-them-on-new-year-s > #foodporn #yummo #foodpornography #foodporno #letseat #instagram #insta #websta #webstagram #newyorkcity #nyc #harlem

A post shared by Queen Esther (@thisisqueenesther) on Jan 1, 2020 at 11:12am PST

Day 8: A feature in the Village Voice!

GoGirlsMusic Elite member @thisisqueenesther is in the Village Voice this week!  Check it out at http://www.villagevoice.com/music/the-forgotten-architects-of-jazz-and-the-new-york-women-bringing-them-back-8705090 #GoGirlsMusic #queenesther #villagevoice #music #indiemusic #jazz #hotjazz #instagood #instalike #webstagram #webstapick

A photo posted by Queen Esther (@thisisqueenesther) on Jun 8, 2016 at 1:23pm PDT

Every day of my birthday month means another birthday surprise. This one -- getting a feature in The Village Voice -- is pretty cool. 

Yes, tickets are still available for the Jazz Age Lawn Party. See you there!

Billie Holiday Post Script 2: Carnegie Hall, 1956 -- The Refracted Set

On Tuesday night at Minton's Harlem, with a wonderfully enthusiastic audience (another full house!) and my coterie of musicians, I deconstructed Billie Holiday's last Carnegie Hall concert from November 10, 1956, which was created to promote her autobiography Lady Sings The Blues. Instead of reading from the book, I read from bits and pieces of ephemera I found at the New York Public Library.  It was a stellar night.

The next time you think of Billie Holiday as a victim and a heroin addict first instead of a genius musician, there are a few explosively noteworthy trainwrecks that you should reconsider, too. Frank Sinatra -- who openly admitted that everything he knew as a jazz vocalist he got from Lady Day -- was a violent alcoholic, addicted to painkillers and, some say, bipolar. Thelonious Monk drank, smoked pot and did drugs to excess. And yes, he had bipolar disorder.  Charlie Parker's propensity towards drug excess was legendary.  Miles Davis. Need I say more?

Nevermind infamous jazz musicians -- everybody knows about them. What about common drug usage?  During the Victorian era, laudanum -- a mix of 10% opium and 90% alcohol and flavored with cinnamon or saffran -- was especially popular.  And why not? It had been popular with the Greeks in antiquity. The Victorians used it to cure menstrual cramps, headaches, as a tranquilizer, even fed it to cranky babies. Everybody drank this stuff.  Keats. Shelley.  Dickens. Louis Carroll.  It was as common and as socially acceptable as scotch -- and much cheaper.  Not surprisingly, it was the beginning of the 20th century before they realized it was lethal.

And the rest? Chopin did opium drops on sugar cubes every day.  Leonard Bernstein was heavily addicted to alcohol, drugs and painkillers, quite possibly because of his latent homosexuality -- or heterosexuality, depending on who you ask. Stravinsky was horribly addicted to all kinds of medications.  Contrary to popular belief, Miss Holiday was hardly the only one on a landscape of creative individuals that drank, smoked pot, did drugs and led what many consider to be a tragic life.  (Charles Mingus? Louis Armstrong? Bessie Smith? What black jazz musician led a life that wasn't tragic in some way?) Everyone had their fair share of misery but for some strange reason, no one else's addictions are listed before their achievements.  Probably because of the media hype that sensationalizes every foul aspect of What Happened To Her -- along with that ridiculous, cockamamie biopic starring Diana Ross -- we are left to view her as a hapless victim. No one seems particularly interested in focusing on her accomplishments, which are nothing short of incredible.

 Well. I'm interested.

Join me next week at Minton's, where my April residency in tribute to Lady Day continues. For more information, click here.

TONIGHT: Georgette (Queen Esther + Lee Ann Westover) at Uncharted! 8pm

 Uncharted!  Thursday, April 9th at 8pm  -- $20

Greenwich House Music
46 Barrow Street
New York, NY
Ph: (212) 242-4770



 *Please note: Your ticket gets you free beer and wine all night long.

As a part of the Uncharted Music Series at Greenwich House Music School, singer/songwriter/musician Lee Ann Westover and I will be blazing away as Georgette,  our newly formed alt-country/Black Americana outfit.  

With George Jones as our namesake (because I love him -- and why not?) we've decided to delve into a few 70s feminist classics along with some of our own original material.  The result is a twang-drenched, soulful and *surprise!* irreverent take on modern sounds in country music. 

The Band:

Hilliard Greene, bass

Pete Matthiessen, guitar + vocals

Dalton Ridenhour, piano + vocals

Shirazette Tinnin, drums

John Widgren, pedal steel guitar

 See you there!

Billie Holiday Post Script 1: Holiday on Broadway

On Tuesday night at Minton's Harlem, I stood in a room that Billie Holiday herself performed in many times and I recreated her 1948 Broadway revue to a packed and attentive house with some of the best musicians I know. And I did it on her 100th birthday.

It doesn't get any better than that.

Thank you, Julia Collins for saying yes to my ideas, thank you Talvin Wilks for grounding and shaping the work, thank you Jeremy Bacon for those flawless charts and thank you Charles Goold, Noah Jackson, Wayne Tucker and Patience Higgins for playing the living daylights out of this music. (And thank you Jett Drolette for photographing us all night!) If you were a part of the audience, thank you for celebrating Miss Holiday's 100th birthday with us. I hope you had as much fun as we did.

Next week on Tuesday April 14th --using sound bites, personal letters, rare news clippings and reviews, and yes, her music -- we will reimagine Lady Day's last Carnegie Hall performance in November of 1956.

See you there.

Happy birthday, Billie Holiday...!

      (Photo by Mito Habe-Evans.)

Today is Billie Holiday's 100th birthday. Imagine that.

To celebrate her centennial, I will be in residence every Tuesday in April at Minton's performing rare sides with a stellar coterie of musicians: Noah Jackson (bass), Charles Goold (drums), Warren Smith (drums), Patience Higgins (tenor sax), Wayne Tucker (trumpet) and J. Walter Hawkes (trombone), with Jeremy Bacon (piano and MD).  Thankfully, Talvin Wilks has joined us to shape what we've assembled. I've been working on several projects about Billie Holiday for some time now, so my research is extensive.  This residency feels like a natural extension of all that work, a highly creative way to get all those ideas out of my head and into the world.

Of course, rare sides means rare songs, so the audience will definitely experience material they've probably never heard in performance. I took this idea one step further and reconfigured different aspects of Lady Day's body of work, to see her in a new light. For tonight's special moment, I will recreate her Broadway debut Holiday on Broadway -- a revue that included Billy Taylor, the founder of Jazzmobile --  which opened on April 27, 1948 in the wake of her first Carnegie Hall performance.

I know that there are many who dismiss Miss Holiday as a drug addict who led a tragic life but the truth is, that could be the byline for just about any successful, brilliant musician in the past 100 years. Nevermind all the jazz musicians that are infamous for their drug fueled debauchery and their tragic lives -- Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk. Stravinsky, as it turns out, was quite the drug addict.  Chopin was addicted to opium and dosed it every day with sugar cubes.  Leonard Bernstein? Painkillers. 

It's very difficult (read: virtually impossible) for the world to openly acknowledge black female genius, to say that black women are brilliant.  Focusing on Lady Day's drug use and the things that went wrong in her life is a convenient way to ignore her musicianship and how it literally changed the world.  Consider this: She got her first paid singing job at 14. John Hammond discovered her at 18.  By the time she was 25, she had recorded well over 120 songs with the best jazz musicians of our time -- most of which are classics now.  She toured with Artie Shaw, Count Basie and Teddy Wilson's big bands.  Impossible but true: She recorded Strange Fruit in 1939 at the age of 22. (!!!) 

This is the Billie Holiday I have come to know and respect -- and yes, love: an exceptionally beautiful, disturbingly brilliant, highly creative genius musician and songwriter who was as tough as any situation demanded, because that's just how vulnerable she really was.

If you want to celebrate Billie Holiday on the day of her birth, we'll see you tonight at Minton's. For reservations and information, please click here.

Queen Esther Sings Billie Holiday -- Minton's in April

Queen Esther Sings Billie Holiday: The Rare Sides
A different program each week!

Every Tuesday in April
Sets at 7:30pm and 9:30pm
$10 at the bar — $20 at the table

Minton’s Harlem
206 W. 118^th St.
for info/reservations 212 243 2222

April 7th    Holiday on Broadway
In honor of Billie Holiday’s centennial (April 7, 1915 – April 7, 2015), Queen Esther recreates the program from Lady Day’s Broadway debut Holiday on Broadway, which opened on April 27th, 1948 in the wake of her first Carnegie Hall appearance.

April 14th   Queen Esther Sings Billie Holiday at Carnegie Hall, 1956: A Refracted Set
Using personal letters, soundbites and interview segments from Lady Day herself, Queen Esther puts a refracted spin on Miss Holiday’s last Carnegie Hall performance, giving the audience a new perspective on the greatest jazz siren of the 20^th century.

April 21^st and 28^th   The Billie Holiday Project
With the relatively unknown yet timeless songs of the iconic siren Billie Holiday as an aural backdrop for several newly unearthed Zora Neale Hurston short stories from the height of the Harlem Renaissance – including Monkey Junk, an uptown “fable” of Black city life and an instant classic – Queen Esther explores new ground by giving this unexplored material a fresh perspective.

This presentation will be followed by a set of rare sides.

Friday the 13th #1: Photoshoot!

Because Friday the 13th happens three times this year -- and won't happen again for another 11 years! --  I thought it would be fun to do something momentous for each one.  I'm not superstitious but I know way too many specifics about my Southern rural traditions, and I have sense enough to respect them.  Everybody's got their thing.  Such is life.

It's interesting to mark the days this way, with art that I make or ideas that catch me off guard.  This moment came together with photographer Steven Rosen so effortlessly, it felt like fate.  Steven was the one who took this portrait of me at the Jazz Age Lawn Party last year.  This photo captures the ethereal, timeless, elegant nature of the event -- and me! -- so completely, that asking him to shoot me for the April residency was a no-brainer.

I will be in residence at Minton's Harlem every Tuesday in April, with a program I've created that is dedicated to delving into unknown facets of Billie Holiday's body of work.  Every week, I will present a different idea, with unexpected results. What's especially exciting is that 2015 is her centennial year and the first Tuesday of the residency -- April 7th -- is her birthday.

I have been thinking about the visuals for this project for a long time, mostly because I was in the process of shaping my own image and I knew that it would bend its way onto this idea whether I wanted it to or not.  I wanted something simple and austere, yet elegant and beautiful -- mood-inducing stuff -- because ultimately,  I should look the way the music sounds. But it's bigger than that. I can no longer have anyone look at me and think of anyone else except me. And that's WAY more difficult than it sounds. 


Here's an out-take. And just in case you were wondering: I'm wearing a Byron Lars silver hobble dress, I did my own hair and make-up, and yes, I styled it myself.

For information about the April residency at Minton's Harlem and/or to make reservations, please call 212 243 2222.

I know there are a lot of people who will be looking for gardenias in my hair or an imitative send-up of her more popular material, because quite a few of those people have approached me whenever I sing any Holiday standard with a peony on my head.  Sometimes they say the oddest things, like how my flower is on the wrong side of my head or how I don't sound like Billie Holiday at all or how I must listen to a lot of Carmen McRae or Nina Simone or whoever their favorite black female jazz singer is.  I love peonies. I think they're a gigantic burst of color to my soul. I think they wake up something in me whenever I wear them. But I can't wear them anymore.

I have absolutely no intentions of turning myself into Lady Day for a month.  Miss Holiday herself got tired of that flower and those songs long before she passed away, and made a point of moving past them with resolve when the rest of the world refused to do so.  My question is, what about the rest of her work?

I hope that everyone is as interested in her rare sides as I am -- those songs that were hits back in the day but don't get a lot of attention, here and now.

See you in April. 

Make Cool Art!

I am eternally grateful that I get to make the art -- and create the imagery! -- that I want to see in the world.  At the moment, there's plenty of auditions and callbacks and gigs (oh, my!) and time must be spent honing all the tools in the proverbial toolbox (voice lessons, piano lessons, on camera acting lessons, etc) As for what I'm making: there's a new song cycle in the works,  I'm developing a jazz musical (The Billie Holiday Project) and I've finally started Georgette, the twang-drenched, feminist, country & western band of my dreams. 

Click here for what I'm up to in February -- and here's a heads up for what's happening in April.

• Uncharted: Georgette, featuring Lee Ann Westover and Queen Esther -- April 9th, 8pm.  Country comes to the Village. Yes, there will be a house concert deep in the heart of Billyburg in late March and yes, we'll get to you via Concert Window if you can't get to us.  We're on Facebook! For tickets, click here.
• Queen Esther Sings Billie Holiday: The Rare Sides at Minton's Harlem -- every Tuesday in April.  With direction from Talvin Wilks and music direction from Jeremy Bacon, a different program will be presented each evening -- including an abbreviated version of The Billie Holiday Project -- to illuminate unexplored facets of Lady Day.  For more information: 212 243 2222.

THE NEXT GIG: East Ville des Folies -- February 7th at Webster Hall

I'll be singing jazz at East Ville des Folies as they resurrect the not-so-temperate 1920s for their Third Annual Beer and Whiskey Festival -- replete with four floors of burlesque, booze and savory delights -- on Saturday, February 7th at Webster Hall. Come get foolish with us.

The Wednesday Night Residency at Minton's Continues!

The JC Hopkins Biggish Band in action at Minton's. Photo by Gabi Porter

Every Wednesday since last May, the JC Hopkins Biggish Band has been seriously tearing it up at a newly-revived Harlem hot-spot called Minton's -- the place where be-bop was born.  Thankfully, we get to keep that ball rolling into 2015.   With six horns, a rhythm section and a very grand piano, it's not exactly a big band.  We swing hard, though. Some of the hottest players in the city are in that band, gliding through beautiful arrangements of unexpected standards and original songs that shine.

Charles Turner is a wonder.  Strangely, we sound like we've always sung together. 

Sit at the bar and have a drink and let the music embrace you. Dance, if you like. And yes, the Lowcountry cuisine is kind of fantastic.

“The birthplace of bebop, Minton’s on 118th Street, has been reborn as a venue that is as classy as it is historic. The long-neglected room has now been remodeled into one of the most attractive venues in the city, with a menu that puts most Midtown clubs to shame. The combination of pianist-bandleader JC Hopkins and vocalist Queen Esther expertly recapture the vitality and energy of Harlem jazz and blues of 70 years ago without slavishly imitating anyone and are thus a perfect fit, and they should help the relaunched room attract the attention of dancers as well as diners.” — The Wall Street Journal

Minton’s — 206 W. 118th Street at St. Nicholas
Doors open at 6:00pm.
Performances at 7pm – 11pm.
Music charge: $10 at the bar, $20 at a table.
Dinner reservations are recommended.

For more information: 212 243 2222

Some reviews for my Black Americana album "The Other Side"...

Here are a few review quotes for my self-released Black Americana album The Other Side – available now from your favorite digital retailer, including iTunes, Amazon and Bandcamp.  I'll keep adding more as they come in. And if you'd like to give the full album a listen, try Spotify or last.fm

"Secrets do have a way of leaking out, and one that desperately needs to be heard is Americana/country/ jazz singer, Queen Esther. Every song is sung with passion and fire, by this underrated female singer who should be a musical giant." -- Country Music People (UK)

"...the most exciting Afro-Americana release of the year.  She sings Steve Miller’s “Jet Airliner” (by the Creole songwriter Paul Pena) and original gospel and rockabilly tunes, but the bulk of the album is devoted to hard-country numbers that could have been taken from a Connie Smith or Lee Ann Womack record but were in fact composed by Queen Esther herself. These are ballads and two steps about romantic crises, and the strategic unsteadiness in her glowing voice suggests not the cool self-assurance of an urban sophisticate but the heart-on-a-sleeve transparency of a small-town innocent." -- Paste

"This album is amazing. And very difficult to classify. Can you imagine a black Lucinda Williams? Not like when she plays the blues torn from her first albums, no. A black Lucinda Williams in pop, rhythm, blues and even gender roots Americana. So it sounds, if you can imagine such a hodgepodge somehow, the latest album from this brutal, original, explosive singer." -- Vanity Fair (Spain)

"Our admiration for Queen Esther is almost beyond measure." -- Rootstime (Belgium)

“Queen Esther’s new album The Other Side is unlike anything you’ve heard in recent years…or possibly ever.”  -- Muruch.com

"Queen Esther literally has the voice of an angel." -- Jersey Beat

"In a world where so many artists are carbon copies of one another or rely on technology to hide a lack of talent or originality, Queen Esther comes across like a real lady with real talent who isn't afraid to bare her soul to the world." -- BabySue

“Simple intentions and promises gently take your hand as Queen Esther smiles in the knowledge that ‘sweet dirt can’t hold me’ before she hops aboard Ronny Drayton’s jet fueled guitar lead to arrive in ‘Sunnyland’” – Alternate Root

“Queen Esther takes "Jet Airliner" back to its Paul Pena roots and imbues many of her tunes with a Ted Hawkins-meets-Loretta Lynn vibe.” – East Side Slim’s Picks

“Queen Esther taps into a new musical genre, "Black Americana" as she mixes together pieces of folk with country, blues, jazz and soul to create some wonderful new sounds.” – JP’s Music Blog

"It’s the melancholy country cuts that Queen Esther excels in. 'I’ve Come Undone Again' is a particular highlight; a splendid slice of melancholy country complete with Hank Williams-esque melody and all. 'Love Is a Wrecking Ball' and 'I Feel Like Going Home' are wrought with emotion and are likely the best tracks here." -- Americana UK

 "Pedal and lap steel guitars, boom-chick rhythms and Atkins/Travis guitar picking dominate this set. Queen Esther's vocals, meanwhile, even at their hardest-rocking, invoke the high-and-lonesome plaintiveness of the honky-tonk/bluegrass/rockabilly continuum as much as they do the harsher-timbred blues tradition." -- Living Blues

"‘The Other Side’ is a collection of material that defies pigeon-holing, yet the intriguing term assigned to it seems to sum up the way black and white musical traditions intertwine in perfect harmony." - For the Country Record (UK) 

“In short: A masterpiece of an extremely talented singer / songwriter who can compete with the major players in this field, such as Lucinda Williams.” – Blues Magazine (The Netherlands)

The Next Gig: New Year's Eve Eve

The party of the season is ON! Get your tickets here.

 

I'll Tumble 4 Ya

I fell into a conversation over a pot of tea with a gal pal for the umpteenth time who expressed a profound sense of confusion when we were talking about what I do. The conversation went something like this:

Setting: A noisy, super trendy coffee shop on Food Drink Boulevard. She looks like she's on her way to a first date with a guy she likes way more than she should. I look like a Nigerian graduate student -- as usual.  She's eating pastries. I'm eating clean. We are talking about everything and nothing.

Her: I went to your website, I saw where the gig was and stuff.

Me: And?

Her: I dunno. I wanted more.

Me: More what?

Her: I dunno! More stuff.

Me: Well. (slight pause) Did you scroll through?  Did you see the photos? I've got a blog, too. Actually, I've got two blogs.

Her: I don't have time to read all that! I mean, I have time. I guess. I dunno... (her voice drifts off)

Me: You are such a ding-dong!

Her: I know, right? (we both laugh) I dunno. The website is cool but I want more you. You know? Everything is there and it's cool but. There's not enough you.  And not enough stuff.

Me: (hissing) What stuff?

Her: You know. Stuff! I wanna see everything.

Me: (to myself, trailing off) I don't know what that means.

End scene.

Later, I remembered a friend saying something about how I shouldn't make it difficult for anyone to find me online.  And I was like, duh. But it's different for me because I wear a lot of hats and those hats have hats.  So I've created a specific place for a specific hat -- a Tumblr site for the music that I do. Actually, it's primarily for the next album, which should be out by next month.  I want anyone -- even my little teatime friend -- to be able to go to that site and have the sensory overload for my new album that their post-modern 21st century sensibilities have grown to expect.

I get it. Social media is a hydra and everybody's different. Everybody has their favorite platform, their favorite way to dissect information online. Some people are fine with a great website that has all the information in one place. Some people want a blog so they can read all about it. Some people just want to know where the next gig is happening. Some people don't like musicals or cabaret acts or performance art or hot jazz or swing music or whatever else I'm up to. They want rock and roll, straight up -- and that's all they want.

It's ok. I love you all.

http://thisisqueenesther.tumblr.com

Next up? A 3 minute video/doc/EPK.

The Next Gig: Queen Esther sings Billie Holiday at HAF Sessions, 12/12

FYI: I'll be doing a short 30 minute set of Billie Holiday's rare sides for this event, and I'll be accompanied by guitarist Marvin Sewell in one of Harlem's newest hotspots.  (For tickets, click here.)

“The HAF Sessions are an incredibly important part of honoring our commitment to both the artists we work with and the community we serve. Our goal is to establish a continuous presence in curating contemporary work.” JJ El-Far -- Harlem Arts Festival Creative Director, Co-Founder

End of the Year Blowout!

I'm going to do NaBloPoMo because I need to get unstuck with my writing. Whatever prompts me into these spontaneous fits with these little scribbly moments will give me the impetus I need to dig in with everything else.

Someone on Fitbit's blog threw down a gauntlet and challenged everyone to walk/run 600,000 steps by December 31st. They made that challenge three weeks ago but of course I didn't see it until last night. At this juncture, that would mean I'd have to run something like ten miles a day. Right away, I figured why not. If I aim for ten, I'll probably do five, which is what I'm supposed to have under my belt every day, anyhow.  So I'll be getting unstuck physically, too.

The real reason I'm jumping on the fitness fast track is because I'm singing at The Kennedy Center's Millenium Stage next month with my jazz collective The Hot Five.  When they told me that they're doing a simulcast that will be archived -- well, that just about cut it.  I'll be hornswaggled if I won't look amazing on camera for posterity.  A snapshot on an off day is one thing. Forever and ever for the whole world to see is something else.

The quintet and I will be at The Player's Club for New Year's Eve Eve and I return with a duo for New Year's Eve, so there's that.  What's really driving things forward at the moment is the timeline I sketched out with my director Talvin Wilks for The Billie Holiday Project, the musical I'm developing.  We had a meeting last week that truly lit a proverbial bonfire under my butt. 

I'm starting every day this month with a drop off to Bottomless Closet or the Salvation Army for that handy dandy tax write off, and I'm decluttering absolutely everything.  Stuff is getting thrown out, shredded, donated or sold, in short order. By New Year's Eve, everything must be in order -- cleaned, scrubbed, scoured and organized -- because as the saying goes, how you end the year is how you'll live out the next one.

Onward and upward, kids. 

Love the skin you're in -- or else!

Once upon a time, I was invisible -- more or less. I glided through the world, unnoticed. No jaws were dropped when I walked into a room, no readjustments were made. Black girls who were extremely light or dark were considered especially exotic and desirable, for whatever reason. I existed in that dead zone of brownness that rendered me generic at first glance. I flew below the radar -- and because I didn't know any other way to be, I enjoyed it quite a lot. This went on forever, really. This went on for my whole life.

I instinctively knew that good health was paramount to a great quality of life. What good would it do for me to conquer the world if I didn't have the energy to enjoy it? One memory that stands out from my high school years (and yes, that will probably stay with me forever) is a of a painfully on trend black girl with unspeakably horrible skin who, in a moment of clarity on a schoolbus, stopped hating me long enough to concede that my skin was so beautiful, it quite literally took her breath away. That totally freaked me out -- probably because I knew it was true.

I didn't take up smoking or drinking in high school or college, and I didn't do drugs. Those were expensive habits and I never had money. Maybe things would have been different if I could have attracted a guy to pay for all of that stuff but nope, I couldn't do that, either. I did what I had to do to stay lean and strong -- mostly running and weight-lifting -- and thanks to the heart attack Daddy had when I was 9 years old, I wasn't in the habit of eating garbage -- or junk food, which was considered expensive and a waste of money.

I didn't realize it at the time but by putting those good habits in place on automatic, I was setting myself up for success. After a certain point, they become so much a part of my everyday life, it felt wrong when I didn't do them.

Hear this, loud and clear: There was never, ever, ever a moment -- as a little kid or as an adult -- when I did not moisturize my skin on a daily basis. I used everything from Palmer's Cocoa Butter to Vaseline Intensive Care but God knows, I used something. Presenting oneself to the world with ashy skin was akin to sloth of the highest order. It simply wasn't an option. Period. When I got to college, I kept moisturizing, I wore sunscreen every day, I got facials every month and I slept in a sports bra to keep my breasts stationary. (More on that some other time.)

Relocating to New York City didn't change anything. I found a decent gym, a facialist, an eyebrowist and I got to work. Did I have money? Of course not. I was still broke as hell, living hand to mouth in an SRO on the Upper West Side and barely getting by. But I was lean and strong and healthy, and my skin looked amazing. I realized that God gave me everything I needed to maintain myself, physically. All I really lacked was discipline.  That was the real struggle.

And now?  My routine hasn't changed. I still take care of my skin religiously. I still hit the gym, hard. My body has changed, so I'm better off if I eat clean. The really weird thing is, all of a sudden, everyone can see me -- which kind of makes me wonder if I was ever invisible in the first place.

Whatever it takes. I'm not giving up. I'm not going to let it drop. I'm going to fight for my good health all the way down the line.

For me, that starts with my skin.

Queen Esther sings Billie Holiday at Superfine!

 

Great news, y'all -- I've got a three month residency at DUMBO's Superfine! I'll be there on the first Sunday of every month for three months, starting January 5th from 7pm to 9pm. Reservations are strongly encouraged. 

I'll be accompanied by guitarist Marvin Sewell and bassist Ben Rubin. Expect to hear a tonnage of Billie Holiday's rare sides.

Superfine

126 Front Street, Brooklyn NY 11201

(718) 243-9005

Bar open Sun.-Thu. until 2 a.m.; Fri.-Sat. until 4 a.m.

 

The Next Gig: Jazz at Superfine in DUMBO, 10/27

...because after all the Halloween fun you'll have on Saturday night, you'll want to have a cocktail, listen to me sing fine and mellow standards, and chill all the way out.  (And maybe eat something delicious...!)

I'll be playing with Marvin Sewell and Ben Rubin -- only two sets, straight up. And it's FREE, my favorite price. Selah.

13 reasons you're not as successful as you should be.

unbelievable but true: most people don't have goals. i can't imagine living in new york city without them. because of the pace and the pressure and the high cost of living here financially and mentally,  i've always had to have a good reason to stay. i mean a really good reason -- because i like it here or i feel like it was somehow never good enough. 

make no mistake: this place can be hell on earth.  trying and trying and trying and trying and not getting anywhere -- living through that, time and again, has got to be some subset of hell. and for some of us, for a time, that is exactly what it's like to be an artist in new york city. the thing is, you have to put your time in. you have to keep going. or not. i knew a lot of people who hit that wall and went home. i hit that wall and climbed right over it. i just couldn't live with myself if i quit. i'd never know what could have happened. so i kept going.

having time-based goals anchored me. failures made me rethink things and try something new. accomplishing things every day gave me little victories that compelled me to stay the course. and then something gigantic would happen and there would be so much success, even daddy stopped hassling me. and then all of that would die down, and eventually daddy would crank right back up again, which brought me back to square one. 

as it turns out, i had a mindset for success -- and i really had no idea.  i was just trying to survive new york city.

i work extremely hard, sure. hard work is what's required -- and i'm certainly not afraid of it. and yes, i'm highly creative. i'm an artist and i'm harmelodic, so it comes with the territory. creativity helps when it's time to find a new way to unravel an old problem, when i've run out of options, when i need to turn on a dime and make a quick decision. i'm always having to learn new things, usually right when i'm comfortable with what i already know.  sometimes i'm eager to learn but more often than not, it's something that 's foisted on me out of nowhere and i'm freaking out, because i have so much catching up to do. and then i catch up and there's something else to learn, right now. running around with highly creative people who have to change and adapt in a snap helps a great deal. 

the impossibilities start rushing in when i have ideas and no real way to develop them -- no money, no time, no equipment, no nothing.  i don't care. i keep strategizing and thinking my way through it. i keep going. i keep waiting for a crack in the ice. and somehow, that crack happens and i get all the way in there.  success! another victory erupts. and then it's on to the next.

and as if all of that weren't enough, i never, ever, ever give up.

that's the real reason why i'm still in the city. it's not about auditioning and getting the part and doing eight shows a week for months or years on end. it is but it's not. not exactly. i'm not finished with everything that i want to do here, not yet.

this is how new york city infects you. when will i ever not think like this. how can i stop.